Open data is great, but it's useless if you don't know what to do with it. Sunlight Labs, a group focused on using technology to support open government, recently releasedClearMaps. It's an Actionscript framework for interactive cartographic visualization.

In addition to giving designers and developers more control over presentation the project aims to address some of the common technical challenges faced when building interactive, data driven maps for the web. ClearMaps is designed as a lightweight, flexible set of tools for building complex data visualizations. It is a framework not a plug-and-play component (though it could be a starting point for those wishing to make reusable tools).

It's still in the early stages, but developers will want to check this out I am sure.

The National Science Foundation announced the 2009 winners of their annual visualization challenge. As usual it's mostly scientific visualization of biological organisms and phenomena speckled with a few data-focused entries. The above, for example, took first place in the photography category. It's a picture of tiny fibers, nanometers in diameter, wrapping around a plastic ball while immersed in evaporating liquid.Continue Reading

Add another book to the growing library of guides on how to make information graphics the right way. Dona M. Wong, former graphics director of The Wall Street Journal and now strategy director for information Design at Siegel+Gale, provides the dos and don'ts of data presentation in The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics.

First Impressions

Given Wong's background, you can make a pretty good guess about the examples used. They're not graphics from The Journal but they do look a lot like them. The book description also makes a point of highlighting that Wong was a student of Edward Tufte, which was a big hint on what the book is like.Continue Reading

After the county map tutorial a few months ago, I decided to write more how-to posts. Since then, with the new tutorials, it's been great seeing the excitement over visualizing your own data. So now, a question for you.

What visualization tutorials do you want to see next?

Obviously I can't teach everything since I still have plenty to learn myself, but I'll be sure to give everything a try. Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

Tableau Software, popular for making data more accessible, mainly in the business sector, just opened up with Tableau Public. The application is similar in spirit to other online data applications like Many Eyes and Swivel. It lets you share data and visualizations online. However, Tableau Public doesn't have a central portal or a place to browse data. Rather it's focused on letting you explore data and stitch modules together on your desktop and then embed your findings on a website or blog.Continue Reading

Science Valentine - Stick man of xkcd writes a valentine with just the data. This is what happens when you only let your brain lead. As they say, lead with your heart... and you won't end up a boring sack of facts who no one likes. [thanks, all]

Love on the (Facebook) wall - It's the greatest love story of all time. Woman gets divorced. Old friend comments on her wall. Comment turns to chat, chat turns to text, and text turns to phone call. Man proposes to woman via comic.

The online dating world can be a confusing place. How do you interact with others? Who should contact? What should you say about yourself? There are a lot of decisions to make, but it all starts with your profile picture when it comes to grabbing the attention of potential dates. Online dating site, OkCupid, analyzed over 7,000 profile pictures, debunking four myths:

It's better to smile

You shouldnâ€™t take your picture with your phone or webcam

Guys should keep their shirts on

Make sure your face is showing

Some of the results are pretty surprising. For example, men's photos were most effective when they weren't looking at the camera and not smiling:

It was the opposite for women. A flirty face or smiling while looking at the camera showed most effective:

Anatoly Zenkov provides this nifty tool (Mac and PC) to track your mouse pointer. Really simple. Just start it, let it run, minimize the window, and carry on as usual. In the end, you get this image that looks something like a Pollock. Circles show areas where the pointer didn't move while the tracks show movement.Continue Reading

A few months back, the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS) opened up a brand spanking new forum where people could discuss how they used the group's traffic data. They created…Continue Reading

If you're an undergraduate with an interest in data and statistics, you should definitely consider applying to this one-week summer program: Explorations in Statistics Research. It's in Boulder, Colorado and your travel expenses, along with room and board, will be covered.

The seven day workshop is designed so that students get a sense of how statisticians approach large, complex problems. Several different topics will be presented over the course of the week.

You'll also get hands-on experience with computing and visualization tools. Basically, you're going to have fun with data when you're there.

And since three of the four organizers are either past or current advisers of mine, I can tell you first-hand that you're going to learn some cool stuff during the workshop.

Ever since I found out about the Statistical Atlas of the United States, it annoyed me that there wasn't one in the works for the 2010 Census due to cuts in funding. So I recreated the original 1870 Atlas using today's publicly available data.

If you're new to R or coding in general, it can be a challenge to figure out where you're going. Where to start? What to learn next? There's a benefit to more guided instruction. Here's a course to help take you from beginner to advanced.

You can customize graphics in R with par(), but the docs are mostly text and just organized alphabetically. Here is a more visual reference, categorized by what you can change. Plus, a one-page printout.